THE HANDSTAND

SEPTEMBER 2003

  ..
boOk reviews ::
The Unconquerable World
..by Jonathan Schell
08/10/03

CHRISTOPHER LUNA
The Oregonian

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans awoke from a decade of relative peace to the realization that, as Jonathan Schell puts it, "in our age of weapons of mass destruction all buildings, all cities, all nations, all people can likewise be reduced to ash in an instant."
    
Terrorism cannot be reduced without the help of other nations. Yet America has adopted a policy of "unchallengeable military domination over the Earth, accompanied by a unilateral right to overthrow other governments by military force," that is, by definition, imperialist. In "The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People," Schell questions what he sees as the double standard that allows the United States to decide which countries must disarm while maintaining its own nuclear stockpile.

In order to understand war, Schell writes, we must first recognize "how great its usefulness and appeal as an arbiter has been." Imperialism, as well as the scientific and industrial revolutions, fed the development of the "war system" that defined modern history and led to "Western domination of the globe." But the development of the atom bomb and its use by the United States in World War II "rendered the global war system unworkable beyond any hope of repair."

World leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev privately understood the devastating consequences of nuclear war but were required publicly to perpetuate the arms race. This shift toward "the primacy of appearance" indicated "official recognition" that the old war system "had become an anachronism."

Schell argues that despite the incredible violence of the 20th century, the changes brought about by nonviolent action "were as real and as consequential." In the American, French and Bolshevik revolutions, the initial overthrow of the government was "nearly bloodless." Trotsky, Mao and Ho Chi Minh likewise understood that political action was more effective than force. The violent phase of many "wars of self-determination" occurred long after the change in the hearts and minds of its proponents had already taken place.

The success of "people's war" in Vietnam and elsewhere resulted from a willingness to subordinate everything to politics. History teaches that the "resolve of peoples to reject foreign rule and take charge of their own destinies" cannot be "bombed out of existence," Schell writes.

Considerable space is devoted to Gandhi's nonviolent overthrow of British rule in India, a success that proved that consent is a more powerful arbiter than force. Although sometimes mislabeled "passive resistance," Gandhi's strategy of withholding consent from an immoral government is inherently courageous. Although the democratic movements that took place in Eastern Europe in the 1970s and '80s were "largely secular," their participants shared Gandhi's "conviction that the prime human obligation is to act fearlessly and publicly in accord with one's beliefs."

Schell agrees with Hannah Arendt's theory that power is located in societies rather than government and that totalitarianism is the "principal example of the powerlessness of violence." He proposes two kinds of political power: cooperative power, which is "based on support," and coercive power, which is "based on force." Cooperative power stems from a love for truth and freedom.

Encouraged by the recent turn toward collective rights, Schell suggests the formation of a league of democratic countries, an institution that would distinguish itself from NATO and the European Union through its "commitment to freedom." The war on terrorism, which he believes conveniently masks a concerted effort to control the world's oil supply, has headed the United States down "the path of arrogance and ignorance."

"The Unconquerable World" concludes not only with a call for peaceful solutions to political disputes but for a complete abolition of nuclear weapons. For our own survival, we must "turn away from force and toward cooperation." Schell persuasively asserts that nonviolence has proved itself to be as "synergistic and contagious" as its alternative: "Just as violent revolution creates the conditions for dictatorship, nonviolent revolution paves the way for democracy."

Christopher Luna recently reviewed the poetry anthology "Off the Cuffs" for The Oregonian.

During the post-Cold War years of the 1990's, the great powers unfortunately missed the opportunity to abolish their own arsenals and lead the world to an era of peace. In particular, the US has taken a unilateral position that only we and our alllies shall possess nuclear weapons. But nuclear weapons in the hands of any nation will always be seen by other nations as a threat to their security. The possession of nuclear weapons by any nation, therefore, inexorably moves other nations toward development of their own nuclear weapons. The post-Cold War nuclear posture of the US is creating a new and even more dangerous era of worldwide nuclear proliferation not limited to a single great power like the USSR. According to the State Department's count, 44 countries or groups now have the potential to develop nuclear weapons. The struggle and the choice, is now between nuclear abolition and nuclear anarchy. Unless the world chooses nuclear abolition, it will get nuclear anarchy. The road to nuclear anarchy is in fact the road we are now on.Jonathan Schell

Arab debates slammed for loud tone, meaningless content.
Theses about the Handicapped Renaissance,Arab-Israeli MP, Azmi Bishara, lashes out in new book
Daily Star staff, 8/11/03

There was an era, an era of emancipation from the historical progress of thesubject. The ideologies of the preceding era that put the subject at the center of progress had weighed heavily on us. Messianic ideology, human engineering and global plans to save the world (the most egregious of these being Stalinism and Kampuchia), were part of the world enlightenment. There was a necessity to deconstruct this progress of the subject and to understand its dialectic. It began with Rockheimer. and Adorno's dialectic of the enlightenment and it ended with Foucault. The question now is: What next? And the key phrase for me as an intellectual is moral values, not ideologies. In a way, I return to Kant. I say that we cannot continue without a link between rationalism and values. Foucault was good as a teacher of the 19th century. He is not a good mentor for the 20th. He criticized the 19th century but left us without solutions. It can lead to a cynicism and he himself fell into a political misreading, vis-a-vis Iran. We cannot give up on the very problematic relationship between values and rationalism, even though it is full of contradictions. I'm sure the solution should not be shaped as ideology and absolutely not hermetic ideology. What is the answer? I don't know. But I know that this is where Kant is buried.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
When reviewing a book by Azmi Bishara, a journalist fears a harsh reply from the smart Arab-Israeli Knesset member who lashed out in his new book at Arab intellectuals, commentators, fundamentalists, politicians and a regressive society at large.
Released in March by Riad al-Rayyes Publishing House, Beshara’s book,Thesis about the Handicapped Renaissance, comes down heavily on the social anomalies dominating Arab society in general and the Palestinian community in particular.
Beshara believes that the right of a people to self determination starts with their ability to establish self-organization and redefine its definition of self-respect.
Perhaps it is this book that should have been entitled What Went Wrong, rather than the Orientalist academic Bernard Lewis’ 2002 work, to act as a starting document for reform in the Middle East.
According to Beshara, Arab debates are characterized by a loud tone and meaningless content. He ridicules those debaters who think of discussions as verbal battles and therefore cite cliches without content instead of presenting well thought out arguments.
The book reflects Beshara’s deep understanding of the sociopolitical anomalies that, in his opinion, are obstacles to an Arab renaissance.
In terms of style, the book is loaded with terminology that would seem hardly comprehensible to an average reader. But this might have been Beshara’s intention, for he believes that an Arab renaissance should be based on broadening the intellectual spectrum instead of employing poetic phrases that only deepen popular ignorance.
“Politicians and so-called intellectuals fake their ignorance and try to market it as part of an imagined genuine Arab tradition,” writes Beshara, arguing that while such emotional rhetoric might rally the Arab masses, it obstructs progress.
The 47-year-old Arab-Israeli professor, who was first elected in 1996 to the Israeli Knesset and re-elected twice in 1999 and 2003, also denounces the conspiracy theories that dominates the thinking of both Arabs and Jews.
The lawmaker heads the National Democratic Gathering, which he established in 1995, and describes how during
deliberations at the Knesset he witnessed Israelis expressing an endless fear of the Arab conspiracy “to terminate the
Jewish state” or “to impose
the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”
In its first chapters, the book briefly highlights Israel’s discriminatory policies against its Arab citizens.
In later chapters, Beshara succeeds in criticizing the Arab society at large through dissecting and analyzing the behavior of Palestinians. Perhaps it would have been more beneficial, though, if Beshara had put his criticism in a comparative manner, as his writing reflects a minimal knowledge of other Arab communities .
Yet Beshara rightly focuses his criticism on the tribal
behavior of patriarchal Arab society. In an unprecedented manner, Beshara attacks the ego problem inhibiting most Arab individuals.
“The D with a dot after it,” Beshara writes in reference to the Arab way of citing the title of a doctor or doctorate holder.  He sees this as “particularly problematic,” as people who attain high academic degrees do not necessarily contribute to an Arab renaissance.
“Such people come back home and join regression. They either run for the mayor’s position or assume the tribal leadership of their family,” he writes.
Beshara’s work should not be treated as a sociology textbook, however, since it is a record of the observations of a critical man who has been deeply immersed in the lives of both the Jewish and Arab communities living in Palestine.


: Occupied Voices and Controlled Discourse
Occupied Voices (Stories
of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada), by Wendy Pearlman


Rafael Medoff describes "The Day Nathan Straus Went to Church" in Zionism and the Arabs (An American Jewish Dilemma 1898-1948). Nathan Straus is the wealthy philanthropist after whom the Israeli city of Netanya is named.  The important Zionist leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, persuaded Straus to send Reverend John Haynes Holmes, pastor of New York's Community Church to Palestine.  The Zionist settlement impressed Holmes, but Holmes spoke with Palestinian Arab leaders and developed strong reservations about the undemocratic nature of the Zionist program. When another Zionist leader Julian Mack reported Holmes's findings to Straus, Straus rushed to the Community Church on Sunday, April 7, 1929, to "set Holmes straight" before Holmes could present the results of his conversations with Palestinians to his congregates.

The pattern of the Zionist effort to control the presentation of Palestinian views and opinions to the American public has not changed over the last 75 years.  Americans may only hear Palestinian voices through sanctioned mediators or through the approved filter.

Wendy Pearlman addresses the disconnect between American discourse and ordinary Palestinians in new book, Occupied Voices (Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada).  She states in the "Introduction" on page xxvi, "Furthermore, it is my belief the widespread misrepresentations of Palestinians and the general dearth of materials allowing them to tell their own stories makes a collection of exclusively Palestinian interviews crucial at this time. For reasons of common culture and political history, Westerners tend to be more familiar with the Israeli narrative than its Palestinian counterpart.  Palestinians deserve a forum in which they can speak freely.  We in America, in Europe and even, if not especially, in Israel stand to gain tremendously if we stop and listen."

Americans are so well trained at this point that the reviewer from Publisher's Weekly probably attacked the whole premise of the book purely out of conditioned reflex. He appears to believe that Pearlman should have been correcting and reeducating Palestinians instead of researching and revealing Palestinian opinion to the US public.

"[Pearlman's] book grows out of her sojourn and 'provide[s] a window into the human dimension of their struggle' by letting the Palestinians speak for themselves. Think of it as Studs Terkel goes to
the Middle East -- except that only one side in the conflict gets to speak. The first thing that emerges from these interviews is that the Palestinians have suffered a great deal -- if someone hasn't been hurt, jailed or degraded by the Israeli occupation, they know someone who has. 'The army just opens fire whenever it wants to,' says Mahmoud, whose house was razed by the Israeli army. But while Pearlman says her aim is to gain a deeper understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some readers will come away only with despair, a sense that the conflict will never be settled. One Palestinian after another here shows an inability to see any legitimacy in the Israeli side, or to support an end to the current intifada or any attempts at peace-the moribund Oslo peace process is seen as a sellout. And when Pearlman fails to question such statements as that Israel has failed to comply with any U.N. resolution since 1948, many readers may despair regarding Pearlman as well."

Despite the misguided complaints of the above review, American readers should be grateful that Pearlman has published this book, for the current level of US involvement in the ME requires that all
Americans be aware of current Palestinian thinking whether true or false.  If Palestinians believe something that Americans do not, Americans might want to consider the possibility that common
wisdom in the USA may be wrong.

Pearlman's transcriptions of Palestinian opinion are all valuable. Suzanne's comments on p. 54 are particularly worthwhile because US reporters and political analysts, who for the most part do not read or speak Arabic, rarely challenge Zionist and Israeli claims that Palestinian school textbooks are loaded with anti-Semitism and incitement. 

President Bush never fails to express his sympathy for victims of Palestinian terrorism even though he never criticizes Israeli state terrorism, but the toxic terror culture in Israel/Palestine is beyond understanding unless one is aware of the casual cruelty of Israeli policy even when the State of Israel does not employ deadly force.  I direct the reader to pages 135-6 of Pearlman's book.

This little book is a gem that should be in the library of anyone that tries to comprehend the issues in Palestine and the ME.  It has flaws but they are minor.  I wish the book had been accompanied by a CD that contained the original interviews.  I understand the absence. Providing such a CD would have required effort from a sound engineer and probably would have delayed publication.  Nevertheless, the value to a specialist in linguistics would have been immense.

When Zionist forces murdered Arab Palestine with premeditation in 80-90% of the native population from its homes, but they also followed up the ethnic cleansing with the bulldozing of hundreds of Palestinian villages in many cases 1000s of years old.  Nowadays most scholars are
aware that Zionists compounded their main crime against the native population of Palestine with an atrocity against the disciplines of ME archeology and anthropology, but philologists are generally less aware of the wealth of diachronic and synchronic Arabic and Semitic linguistic data that Zionists destroyed as they uprooted the native population of Palestine.  If a CD had accompanied Occupied Voices, a specialist might have been able to analyze it to determine how much of the unique regional Palestinian phonemic, morphological, semantic and syntactic dialect features still survived among the current generation.

Joachim Martillo ThorsProvoni@aol.com

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